


Whiskey and cigars

by Balori



Category: Dishonored (Video Game)
Genre: Budding Love, Canon Relationships, F/M, First Time, Friendship, Pre-Dishonored (Video Game), Romance, Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-25
Updated: 2015-07-25
Packaged: 2018-04-11 03:19:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4419197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Balori/pseuds/Balori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The Month of Rain brought sticky days with no room to breathe, but nights with breezes so sweet you could dance with the wind. And that’s what many of Dunwall’s citizens would do, populating the rooftops of apartment buildings densely packed into the city. The empire was not perfect, but in that month - laughing into the night and twirling under refracted light – it was a happy time. It was only the second day of the month."</p><p>I'm sure there are plenty of these floating about, but this is my take on the day Lady Jessamine and her bodyguard - and best friend - became lovers, and over a Dunwall tradition no less!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Whiskey and cigars

**Author's Note:**

> I only finished (read: devoured) the game a couple of days ago and it set my mind racing. According to the developer commentary, Corvo and Jessamine became lovers on the 2nd day of the Month of Rain in 1823 - putting them both at ~25 and 18 respectively, if my math is correct. And if my math is wrong, feel free to correct me! Also: as far as I've read Jessamine was 12 at the time she appointed Corvo as her Royal Protector, which puts Corvo at 19. The flip-flopping between Royal and Lord Protector depends on present and future tense there
> 
> And yes, this does turn into shameless smut.
> 
> Enjoy! I'd love to hear your feedback.

The Month of Rain brought sticky days with no room to breathe, but nights with breezes so sweet you could dance with the wind. And that’s what many of Dunwall’s citizens would do, populating the rooftops of apartment buildings densely packed into the city. The empire was not perfect, but in that month - laughing into the night and twirling under refracted light – it was a happy time. It was only the second day of the month.

Jessamine was never one for dancing, however. Her feet were planted firmly atop the soil of her empire-to-be; they had been since she was a child, and any dancing she _did_ do was strictly for the _diplomatic_ good of Gristol. But even pragmatic Lady Jessamine, the heir-apparent, the first of her name, was taken in by the moonlight and silliness of the Month of Rain, and though it wasn’t an irregular occurrence, she was inspired to a night of whiskey and cigars with the one person she trusted beyond all others. 

To be fair, it would be a bit concerning if she didn’t trust her Royal Protector more than anyone else. His job was to keep her from dying and, well, “Can I trust you?” is a loaded question to ask anyone – let alone Corvo Attano. Many considered her foolish for trusting a man from Serkonos with her life, but he had proven himself to be far more loyal than the bulk of her family’s most ostentatiously loyal courtiers. And he was her best friend.

“Is something troubling you, Jessa?”

Jessamine looked up from her drink and blinked. The room – her secret room that few except Corvo were privy to, and none except Corvo welcome in - was thick with petrichor and cigar smoke, and her tongue thick with whiskey. Her Royal Protector was leaning forward on his chair, a frown filling the creases on his face. Not uncommon.

“Ah, no, nothing- I didn’t mean to worry you, Corvo.” 

His shoulders relaxed and his face gentled, but he remained leaning forward. “You’re quiet,” he said, setting his own drink aside. “Is that an observation or something new?” she laughed, crossing one leg over the other. “I recall you telling me I’ve become quiet around you a few weeks ago. We agreed it was comfortable. Are you changing your mind now, Corvo?”

At that, he did lean back in his chair with the little half smile on his lips that she had grown used. “Comfortable, yes. But this was not a shared silence. This was yours, not ours.” 

The whiskey made her cheeks warm. She laughed again, a bubbling sound low in her throat, and smiled deeply at him. “My silences are always yours to share in. You need only ask.”

Forward, forward. Quickly pressing the cigar between her lips, she puffed up at the ceiling with a veneer of calm that she was surprised she actually felt. 

But then, she was always calm around Corvo. Headstrong Jessamine found her foil in the Serkonian man and she knew that as strongly now as she did when she was 12. “Do you remember how I never shut up when I was younger?” she asked him around her cigar. He made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a muffled laugh. She grinned. “By all means, laugh at my expense. You’re only sworn to protect me, but nowhere in your contract does it say you have to _respect_ your future Empress.”

“For one thing, your father never gave me a contract. But yes, _Lady_ Jessamine, I do remember. I also remember you giving all your tutors hell for, ah- undermining your intelligence, I think it was?” 

Jessamine burst out laughing. “Oh, they put up with so much, Corvo. I’m amazed no one has tried to get me killed for all the shit I gave them when I was a teenager.” Still giggling, she took another sip of her whiskey before realizing that the silence stretched farther than it should have with a topic so lighthearted. Frowning, she leaned towards Corvo who was looking down at his glass. “Corvo?”

He looked up at her, smiling softly, though his eyes still worried. “You’re still not a quiet person, Jessamine. But I think both you and I know how close you are to the point where my job is going to get serious.”

“I’m too drunk for seriousness!” Jessamine drawled with her hands splayed, cigar in one hand, tumbler in the other. She set both down in the next instant though, her face taking on a more somber expression as she stood up from her seat (stumbling only slightly, she noted with pride). Corvo looked up at her and smiled again, stretching his hand out to her. She took his hand and the few steps to the plush chesterfield couch he was sat on, but kneeled in front of him.

“I remember you kneeling in front of me like this, Corvo,” she murmured, sober for all the world with the way she focused her gaze into his own eyes. “Me, a chit of twelve and you – strong at your nineteen, quiet, a handsome foreigner I’d only seen at a distance before then.”

“You shouldn’t be sitting in front of me like this, Jess, you’re going to be Empress one day,” Corvo said hastily, trying to pull her to her feet. She shook her head, gripping his hands tighter. Her eyes were the warmest ice he had ever seen, the kind that poets would say pierced you. He knew – he had heard – many nobles found her eyes unsettling in a face so beautiful, but she was familiarity like he had never known before, and her eyes were the color of home. And so he found himself holding her hands closer to his chest. The smile she gave him made the blue of her eyes melt in the most stunning way.

“You’re right,” she said, and her voice was just a whisper. “You’re right. I am going to be Empress. And you will be my Lord Protector. And we will have far more to worry about than chasing off suitors and cocky nobles, but that day isn’t here yet. In this room, you and I are you and I. Jessa and Corvo.”

“You’re not nearly as drunk as you’re pretending to be,” he murmured back. She chuckled – delightfully throaty, the kind of low you hear in your bones – and shrugged. “I’m drunk enough to say what I mean and mean what I say.”

And maybe he was drunk too because what else could explain why he took his hand from her only to cup her cheek? Or why his heart was beating shamelessly loud, or why his voice was hoarse with more than nicotine and alcohol for that matter. “Anyone who says you talk too much is as perceptive as a hagfish if they don’t listen to what you say,” he said softly, drawing her up to eye level. “Or how you say it. You’re going to be an amazing Empress, Jessa. Every ear in Gristol will be yours.”

“Already planning trophies from your victims, Royal Protector?” she teased, and suddenly he realized just how close their faces were. So did she, evidently; her breath hitching slightly, she laughed and pressed against the hand on her cheek. “Far too gruesome for the mood we have going. My apologies.”

“What mood would that be?” he whispered. Though every inch of his body begged otherwise, he refused to act before his Empress. She looked at her hand still gripping his and twined her fingers through his instead. Soft skin against callouses.

“Why, whiskey and cigars of course.”

And just like that, she had pushed her fingers into his hair and pressed her lips against his, gasping as brought her in closer to himself. Corvo had his eyes shut, senses dulled to feel nothing except her body and taste nothing except her lips, her lips that were moving so gently against his, so soft that he could swear he was bruising her with all his edges and fight-hardened skin. But if he was, she didn’t care. And he adored her all the more for it. 

After a minute Jessamine pulled back. Her eyes were bright with excitement and anxiety and something else he couldn’t place but had an inkling he was feeling too. “Crap,” she whispered, and he laughed at how unexpected that was. She colored but grinned sheepishly. “I mean- that- you’re okay with this, right? It’s just that…surely I’m not the only one who felt…this…”

Letting her trail off – he could never interrupt her – Corvo kissed her again. It was a short kiss but he was already breathless from the proximity of her. “I’m just relieved _I_ wasn’t the only one feeling that way,” he admitted. “And that you’re drunk enough to have kissed me first.”

“Tipsy at best,” she mumbled under her breath and that was enough to make him kiss her again, wrapping his arms around her waist and pressing her close against him. Her own arms were around his neck, fingers in his hair as the open windows brought in a cool breeze and the smell of sea and rain that she lost herself in, bringing him down with her as she fell back over the length of the sofa, his body on top of hers. In the back of his mind – far, far in the back – he thought about asking her once again if she was sure but it only took one shuddering gasp against his lips for him to forget the thought entirely. Instead he focused on parted lips and cautious tongues, the heat of her neck and the smell of powder and perfume in her skin, the way her body arched when he kissed along her jawline and over her throat, how she tugged his hair when he did something she especially liked. And _she_ focused on the weight of him on her own body – comfort, safety, all his strength poised so carefully – his teeth nipping her earlobe, the noises he made when she sucked his lower lip; and when she pushed off his shirt so she could run her hands over the muscles of his back, he sat up and pulled her onto his lap, letting her straddle his hips and suck his lips until he knew they would purple slightly the next day. He busied himself with the clasps tying her blouse at the back, and only when the now-wrinkled fabric fell from her arms – followed immediately after by her bra - did he pull back from her kisses so he could look at her.

Jessamine did not blush. She did not even consider modesty for a second. She only watched Corvo run the very tips of his fingers down her side and knew that she felt as easy with him naked as she did fully clothed. “My Lord Protector,” she whispered, brushing his hair away from his face, shivering as his fingers gently grazed her breast. “Corvo...”

He looked into her eyes and kissed her again, full of sweetness and adoration, then cupped one of her breasts before leaning forward to kiss and trace around her nipple with the tip of his tongue. She rolled her hips into his as she moaned softly, moaning again when she felt him harden through his pants, and they stayed that way for a while, Jessamine holding his head to her breasts as he paid his ministrations with tongue and kisses and grinding desperately against him. Her moans only fueled him further and he was happy to delay relieving himself from the tight constraints of his trousers if it meant hearing her say his name so breathlessly. But eventually, it was Jessamine who had decided he needed relief. Clenching her fingers in his hair again, she tugged his head back so she could kiss him passionately, and then crawled off his lap. Standing before him, she undressed completely and then took a deep breath.

“Honestly, I’m more nervous about seeing you naked than I am about being naked. Ridiculous,” she muttered, though the smile that had played at her lips since they first kissed did not wane for a second. He smiled back at her, standing up himself and running his hands down her sides again. “Can I take you to your bedroom?” he asked her, resting his hands on her hips. She grinned up at him and kissed his jaw. “Only if the cigars and the bottle come with us.” 

* * *

As soon as he had set down the bottle, and placed the cigars somewhere they were less liable to burn down the tower, Jessamine had pulled him down to kiss her again, working on his pants so she could press all of herself against all of him. Sure enough, they were naked, bodies flush against each other’s as she slowly inched them towards her bed, letting him lift her up and onto the bed for the last few inches. She rubbed her palm against his cock as he trailed hot kisses up and across her torso – this time, he moaned and she shivered happily at the sound – and then felt confident enough to take him into her hand and start stroking him. Up and down her hand went and his hips bucked into her hand with the rhythm, his own gasps against her breast as he flicked his tongue out against the bud of her nipple. That rhythm made him even bolder, eager to feel all her body, and he slipped his hand underneath her to cup and squeeze her ass, flip them over so she was on top of his body and he was beneath her, parting her legs so her knees were on either side of him and she was rocking her own hips against his fingers, throwing her head back and gasping so frantic it made his vision spin.

Their hips met, her heat against his, and he was in her as easily as if they had made love countless times before. Her head hung back, body arching with each gentle movement, and then her chest was flush against his and they were kissing as if they would never kiss again, Corvo thrusting up into her and she bucking down to meet him in a desperate, wonderful dance where all thoughts of Gristol and protocol disappeared and the only reality that concerned them was the sex and the closeness and the pleasure they shared. 

She cried her final, sweet exhaustion against his mouth and he squeezed her closer as he spent himself in her as well; and if the sex was sweet, then the afterglow was even sweeter as retrospect and the sound of fresh rain came rushing to greet them. Both Lady Jessamine and Royal Protector Corvo Attano realized that they were tangled in each other’s arms and smiled a secret smile that they knew would mean something special for the rest of their lives.


End file.
